


Curiosity Killed

by GilShalos1



Series: He Does The Maximum [9]
Category: Law & Order
Genre: Complete, Crimes & Criminals, Detectives, Friendship, Gen, Law Enforcement, Legal Drama, Light Angst, Mild Language, Murder Mystery, Police, minor description of sexual violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-06
Updated: 2007-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-21 20:11:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 13,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8259158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GilShalos1/pseuds/GilShalos1
Summary: Two joggers discover a body in Central Park. Briscoe and Green investigate. They initially suspect a corrupt city councillor, but after an earlier crime comes to light, they arrest another suspect. McCoy must make a deal to secure a conviction.





	1. A Regular Lois Lane

**Author's Note:**

> This was the first story I wrote for the Law & Order fandom, and I started it after the season 16 finale, "Invaders" and before season 17 aired. I wondered how Jack McCoy would deal with Alex Borgia's brutal murder, and what sort of assistant he'd end up, and I started writing to answer those questions for myself. My answers turned out to be quite different to the show's writers ...
> 
> I am not NY native or indeed an American, as my woefully inadequate knowledge of NY geography and the American legal system makes perfectly clear! I do, however, love Law and Order. Here, we get the episodes years late and often out of order, which has led to my long-standing confusion between who is in the show when and why and how old they are. My fannish imagination therefore has its own chronology, which differs from the show's canon in only three substantial ways: Lennie Briscoe didn't retire; Jack McCoy was snap-frozen ten years ago (since that's the age he is in the credits, I choose to believe he is simply photographed unflatteringly in the later series); and this story kicks off at the beginning of series seventeen, so it is substantially AU to everything from then on.

_Central Park_

_6.30 am 6 September 2006_

* * *

__

"So I said to her, I said, you can't be expecting me to sit up all night waiting for you." The two female joggers – one tall and burly, the other shorter and whippet thin - were muffled up against the early morning fall chill. The speaker was the larger of the two, and her words came in spurts on the steaming puffs of her breath as she laboured up a long slow rise.

"Good for you, Kaylee. And what did she say?" Her companion, fitter, spoke easily.

" _She_  said – oh, Jesus, oh my god, oh Jesus Christ." Kaylee stopped short, and her friend's momentary confusion – it seemed an excessive response to a minor domestic disagreement – cleared when she followed Kaylee's horrified gaze. Half-hidden in the bushes, a woman's right arm and shoulder stuck out of a pile of newspaper – the improbable angle of the elbow and the purple colour letting both joggers know something was seriously wrong with the owner of that arm.

"Get help!" Kaylee ordered her companion. As her friend bolted off up the hill, Kaylee took a few steps forward. Kneeling down, she gingerly brushed the newspaper away from the prone form. "Hello, can you hear me, hello?"

Her fingers touched flesh as cold as the ground she knelt on, and she recoiled. The movement dislodged more of the newspaper over the body, and she found herself staring at the woman's face. The bluish tint to the skin, the fixed and wide-open eyes, were shocking enough, but Kaylee hardly noticed them. Her attention was fixed and held by the corpse's mouth, bulging and distorted with pages and pages of newspaper crammed deep behind her teeth.

By the time Briscoe and Green made it to the park the ME had fished the dead woman's wallet out of her pocket and the uniforms had discovered her driver's licence.

"Jennifer Walker," Briscoe read. "Thirty four years old. Five foot six, a hundred and forty five pounds."

"Here's a press-card," Green said. "She was a journalist – with the  _Daily News_."

Briscoe stooped over the corpse as the ME used tweezers to tug a piece of newspaper from Jennifer Walker's gaping mouth. " _Daily News_." he said, reading the banner. "Looks like somebody made her eat her words."


	2. Watergate

_Office of Mike Farrah, editor of the Daily News_

_8.45 am Wednesday 6 September 2006_

* * *

 

"I'm shocked, of course, but not surprised." The editor of the  _Daily News_ leaned back at his desk, hands behind his head, giving Briscoe and Green a good look at the sweat stains under his arms. "Jenny was a damn good investigative journalist, but she only had two speeds."

"Oh yeah?" Green asked. "What were they?"

"Go hard and go harder." Mike Farrah laughed a little sadly. "When you asked if there was anyone who might want to kill her – yeah, a whole bunch. She pissed a lot of people off, and she didn't care. She's had dozens of death threats. I kept telling her we should get you guys involved, but she laughed them off."

"We'll need a list of all those names – especially the ones who made threats." Briscoe said.

"You'll have them."

"What story was she working on this week?" Green asked.

"Hang on, I'll get Sarah up here – she's the news editor. She should know what cages Jenny rattled lately."

Sarah the news editor turned out to be a plump middle-aged woman with crooked glasses and an air of harassed dependability. Mike Farrah didn't ask her to sit down and Sarah didn't come further into the office than the door. Green thought she looked like a woman who concentrated so much on her job she'd started to let herself go. Briscoe thought she filled out her blouse pretty well and that her ankles were nicely turned despite her sensible loafers. "Yeah, Jenny had a big story on the boil. We were hoping she'd be ready for print for Monday's paper, actually. She didn't have all her ducks in a row for legal yet, though – needed some more confirmations."

"What's the story?" Green asked.

"You know Councillor Nettle? He's got a friend who owns a building company – not real big, looking to grow."

"And the friend is getting a lot of city business?"

"Not exactly. The friend has got a lot of new equipment – dozers, trucks – that his cash-flow doesn't account for. And the city has sent an unusual number of vehicles to auction as scrap recently."

"Sounds a little dicey. How bad would it hurt Nettle? Or his friend?"

"Jenny reckoned the scam was worth half-a-million – ask the DAs office how bad the sentence attached to that would hurt. And she said it was the tip of the iceberg, too – but I don't know about that, the story she showed me was just about the equipment rort. She's cagey about her stories until she's got them a certain distance along."

"But she kept notes, right?" Briscoe asked.

"Of course!" Sarah said. "She'd be working up a story all along before she brought it to me."

"Are they here in the office?"

"No. I don't know where she kept them. Try her place. Other than home – I don't know."


	3. Nothing To See Here

_Jennifer Warner's Apartment,_

_West 15th St10 am Wednesday 6 September 2006_

* * *

 

"You know, I'm getting the feeling we aren't the first people to come here looking for something." Lennie Briscoe said.

Green looked around the apartment – the bookshelves empty, the filing cabinets holding only utilities bills and tax returns. "Maybe she was very very neat."

"Even so," Briscoe said, "where are all her investigations?"

"You think the place has been tossed?"

"Not since she died," Briscoe said. "But didja see the front door -– the lock is new, maybe a week old. See the jimmy marks on the frame?"

Green followed his partner's gaze, and his line of thought. "She had a break in, she fixed the locks, maybe got a deadbolt."

"Kept her safe in here," Briscoe said. "But she couldn't stay inside forever."

"So our doer broke in and took her research papers. But the editor said she was still on track to file her story."

"The robbery didn't stop her. The doer tried more permanent methods."

Lieutenant Anita Van Buren thought Briscoe and Green's theory sounded plausible. She also thought the case sounded like a major headache. "Politics, money, corruption and a dead journalist? Are you kidding me?"

"'Fraid not, Loot," Briscoe said. "The 3-7 handled the break-in – it was last Thursday. Walker told them she was missing a lot of files, but no valuables. They agreed with her – it wasn't some junkie, the break-in was about her work."

"Alright. Talk to the DAs office and find out just how much trouble Nettle would be in if this story went to print. Then get down to City Hall and see what you can see – but carefully! Let's not get into political hot water until we have to. Is the autopsy in?"

"They're backed up," Green said. "Five car on the bridge off-ramp."

"All right. Keep me posted. No adventures, not on this one, are we clear?"

"Crystal." Briscoe said.

Van Buren left them to it, and Green picked up the phone and dialled. "Yeah, hello, this is Detective Ed Green from the 2-7. I need to talk to someone in Fraud or Special Prosecutions who can give me some background on municipal fraud. Yes, I'll hold."

"It might be a completely different story," Briscoe said. "Journalists don't always work on just one thing at a time."

"Well, if that's the case, I don't know how we're going to – yes, I'm here. Thank you. Hello, I'm Detective Ed Green from the – uh-huh. Yes, but they're just allegations - yeah. Can you walk me – sure. Sure, we can be there. Uh-huh, we'll see you then." He hung up. "ADA Markham from Fraud is happy to give us a guided tour of those sections of the penal code concerning municipal fraud if we're happy join her for lunch at the Happy Dragon."

"Down on Mott St?"

"Yeah. Twelve thirty."

"We got an hour," Briscoe said. "Let's see what the library can tell us about Councillor Nettle."

"Lennie," Green said, smiling, "I have a better idea."


	4. Dim Sum Moo Shoo

_The Happy Dragon Chinese Restaurant,_

_Mott St_

_1 pm Wednesday 6 September 2006_

* * *

 

There were two kinds of Chinese restaurants, in Ed Green's opinion: the expensive kind, with linen tablecloths, subdued lighting and a wine list, where you might take a woman on a date – not the first date, mind, or the second – and the  _other_ kind, with laminex tables, paper napkins, and wobbly chairs. The  _other_ kind was where you went with buddies from work, old friends, and kids.

The Happy Dragon was the  _other_ kind, and like most of the  _other_ kind of restaurants it was noisy with the clattering from the kitchen and the chattering from the crowd of Chinese diners.

Regan Markham was already there when Brisco and Green arrived, easy to spot sitting by herself at a table with her briefcase and a pile of papers in front of her. The papers and the briefcase were the only things that made her look like a junior ADA. There was a certain groomed polish young lawyers had, even in the DAs office, but nothing about Markham was shiny, and she didn't look all that young in the restaurant's fluorescent lighting.

When Green stood next to her and cleared his throat she jumped to her feet, a tall woman not too much shorter than the two cops. She shook hands with Green first, then Briscoe, and she had a firm grip. She looked them both right in the eye, which Briscoe noticed because it was what he and Green did, it was a cop thing, it wasn't civilian manners.

They did the introductions and sat down while Markham shoved her papers back in her briefcase and snapped it shut.

"Thanks for agreeing to meet me here. If I have to eat one more chicken-of-the-sea sandwich this week I'm going to turn into Jessica Simpson."

"I wouldn't be complaining if you did," Briscoe joked.

"Yeah, I know, my love-life would improve but I think I'd have trouble holding on to my job." Markham put her briefcase on the ground. "And I thought you wanted information, not eye-candy. Got any preferences on food?"

"What's good?" Green asked.

"Szechan chicken. Chinese greens. Any of the beef dishes, but skip the seafood. So you guys have a municipal fraud?"

"Maybe," Green said. "We have a dead reporter who was about to file a story alleging fraud. We don't know how much it would be worth to someone to stop her."

"You sure it was work related?" Markham asked, waving at the waiter.

"She got robbed last week – all her notes and files taken. And the killer suffocated her on copies of her own paper."

"Nice. Szechan chicken and the greens – number 38. And these guys – " Briscoe and Green shrugged. "Bring us a 47 and a 59 too. And tea and rice all round. Thanks. So what's the allegation?"

"City equipment sold as scrap – defective – turning up repainted and in working order. Five hundred grand worth." Green said.

"Councillor Nettle is the public official in question. Jennifer Walker was going to print on Monday. Is that a motive to kill?" Briscoe asked.

"You better believe it. If Walker had evidence, we'd follow up and prosecute. Nettle would be looking at fraud, maybe larceny, maybe grand theft – depending on the methods. He'd be advised to plead out for a nickel, if we gave him the option."

"So he risks the needle?" Briscoe asked.

"Ah, but the real motive doesn't lie in the penal code, Detective. Section 164 subsection 4 of the electoral law states that 'no person convicted of a felony that carries a maximum penalty of not less than 12 months imprisonment shall be eligible to stand for election to a public office in the county of New York.' If Nettle was found guilty, even if the judge gave him time served and good behaviour, he'd be disqualified from serving on the council, disqualified from getting elected to council again, disqualified from being elected to any political office in this or a whole bunch of other jurisdictions." The waiter put the first of the dishes down on the table and Markham picked up her bamboo chopsticks and snapped them apart. "Is he a career politician?"

"Thirty two, on council, papers refer to him a 'one to watch'." Green said.

"Ed goggled him," Briscoe said.

"You mean googled, Lennie," Green said.

"Yeah, well, it's all  _geek_ to me," Briscoe said, and Regan Markham coughed into her green tea.

"'Scuse me," she said. "Anyway, if he's got big ambitions, Jennifer Walker's story would cost him more than money and freedom. It would cost him his whole life."

"So maybe he made sure it cost Jenny Walker hers." Briscoe said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This plot-point is actually drawn from the laws concerning candidates and elections in my home country. I hope nobody out there is drawing their legal advice from fanfiction!


	5. You Can't Fight City Hall

_City Hall_

_Murray St_

_3 pm_   _Wednesday 6 September 2006_

* * *

 

"I think she likes me, Ed," Briscoe said.

"Who?"

"That ADA. Markham."

"You gotta be kidding," Green said.

"Hey, where I come from a woman doesn't buy a man a meal unless she's got designs, you know?"

"Yeah, she comped us both, Lennie."

"I know, I know, but you're too young for her."

"Whatever. Where you want to start with this?"

"Watch and learn," Briscoe said. "Watch and learn."

It turned out – and Green wasn't really surprised – that the woman working reception had a brother who went to school with a cop Lennie knew from the One-Three. When Lennie explained that someone was spreading nasty rumours about one of the councillors and they were trying to find out who on the QT, she was happy to help. Five minutes later they had the home numbers and addresses of the city equipment supervisor, the senior invoice clerk and all his juniors, not to mention maintenance engineers, the lot supervisor where the equipment in question was kept and the purchase clerk.

"Now what?" Green asked his partner, out on the steps again.

"We'll get these people after hours. They'll be more likely to tell tales far away from any witnesses. Let's go over the witness statements from the uniform canvass on the neighbourhood."

Two hours later Green looked up from his files. "Hey, Lennie. Do we have any statements about the break in? Neighbours?"

"Nah. I called over to the 3-7 and they sent the complaint across but it didn't sound like there was much to it. She came home, place was tossed, stuff was gone."

"Did they dust for prints?"

"Let me see – no."

"Let's get CSU over there. It was last week – how good a housekeeper do you think she was?"


	6. Tongued With Fire

_City Morgue_

_8 September 2006_

* * *

 

"I didn't expect to see you here, Ms Markham," Briscoe said.

"I was in the neighbourhood," Markham told him. "Detective Green, nice to see you again."

"Likewise," Green said, although Briscoe could tell he was a little nonplussed. Rodgers stood looking at them, arms folded, all but tapping her toe with impatience.

"This your dead Lois Lane?" Markham asked Briscoe.

"Yeah," Briscoe said. "You looking to catch the complaint?"

"I'm keeping an eye on the fraud, Detective Briscoe. I'm not about to step on your investigation. You'll be picking from the pool at Trials for the complaint."

"Frauds don't usually involve autopsies." Green said.

"I'm trying to see the big picture," Markham said. "I don't want to miss anything, even the communication of the dead."

"Don't get sick on my corpse," Elizabeth Rodgers warned. "And if you're going to faint, do it over by the wall."

"This isn't my first." Markham told her. "I'll be fine."

"Lot of dead bodies in fraud?" Green asked.

"Lots of money. Lots of motive."

"Okay, well, if we can get on with it before I have a six-corpse pile-up in my corridor?" Rodgers said, "We have a well nourished female aged in her thirties. Cause of death – suffocation. Enough newsprint was jammed into her mouth and down her throat to choke a horse. She had a number of other pre-mortem injuries. This bruise here on her cheek probably came from a fist. Bruises on her throat indicate manual choking. She has bruising on her arms and torso and several broken ribs, I believe from being held down or knelt on. And before the perpetrator shoved all that newspaper in her mouth, he pushed a whole wad of it into her vagina. In fact, the injuries and internal bleeding  _that_  caused would have killed her anyway, without medical attention."

"Nice," Briscoe said.

"You sent the newspaper to forensic?"

"I did. But I can tell you that all the pieces I could identify were from the  _Daily News_  – yesterday's edition."

"He collected the papers in advance. That makes it premeditation." Green said.

"Could one person have inflicted all these injuries?" Markham asked. Green noted that she studied the corpse dispassionately, like an ADA used to homicides, not white collar crime.

"Sure," the Rodgers said. "One strong person. In fact I think it's likely. He – I think you're looking for a man –"

"So do I," said Markham. "The paper up the pussy is a masculine touch."

Briscoe coughed. "Excuse me," he said. "I'm not used to lady ADAs with quite such a colourful turn of phrase."

"Yeah, well," Rodgers said, "Your perp hit her, knocked her down, got on top of her, choked her until she was subdued enough, sexually assaulted her with the papers, then suffocated her."

"Sounds like it took a while." Briscoe said.

"Development of the bruises says at least an hour. And time of death – between 10 pm and midnight last night. If you let me know what time she ate her last meal – which was a steak with mushrooms and fries, by the way – I can give you a better estimate."

"Did he do her where you found her?" Markham asked, and glanced at Green when he cleared his throat. "Sorry, detective. Go ahead."

"Ah, so, did he do her where we found her?" Green asked.

"There's dirt under her nails and on one of her feet – I'd say that she was fighting with her assailant in an outdoor environment. The forensic boys will check if it's a match to where she was found."

"Did you get anything from the canvass?" Markham asked Briscoe.

"One witness thinks he saw Lois walking into the park on her own at around 10.30 last night."

"Fits the timeline," Rodgers said.

"Why would she go in the park at that hour by herself?" Markham asked.

"She was meeting someone," Green said.

"Journalists meet sources in secret places in the dark," Briscoe said. "Think of Woodward and Bernstein."

"Deep Throat," Elizabeth Rodgers said, looking down at the body on the table. "Somehow I don't think this was quite what Bob and Carl had in mind."


	7. The Myth Of Fingerprints

_Squad Room, 2-7 Precinct_

_Thursday 14 September 2006_

* * *

 

"Hey, look at this, Ed," Briscoe said. "CSU sent us the report from the Walker apartment. Turns out she was not exactly Martha Stewart. Prints all over – and we have some matches."

"Records?" Green asked.

"We have a couple of cops, one from the 3-7 – she responded to the break in. Lots of Jenny Walker, yada yada. One journalist, Luke Conroy, printed when he got locked up for refusing to divulge a source four years ago – he's a former colleague of Walker's."

"No-one locked up for choking women with newsprint?"

"No, but we have some unidentified. They're going to ask the FBI to run them through their databases. We might get a hit that way."

"When? By Christmas?"

"You have a better idea?"

"We've talked to just about everybody on that list from City Hall. It looks like Walker's story on Tony Nettle was solid. Let's pick up Nettle for fraud, get his prints and let's see what lights up."

"Let's run that bright idea past Van Buren," Briscoe said.

"What bright idea?" Van Buren asked, pausing on her way back to her desk with a cup of coffee in one hand and a cruller in the other.

"Ed wants to arrest a rising star of the city council."

"Good for him," Van Buren said. "No."

"LT – "

"No! What evidence do you have?"

"We have a lot of solid information about Nettle's fraud. And we have prints in Jenny Walker's apartment that might be Nettle's. If we pick him up we can print him – "

"Nice try, Ed. Write it up. I'll take it to Mr Branch."


	8. Taking The Case

_Office of District Attorney Arthur_   _Branch_

_One Hogan Place_

_Friday 15th September 2006_

* * *

 

"You wanted to see me?" Jack McCoy tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. He could ill afford the time for this meeting with the caseload on his desk, but Arthur Branch was, nevertheless, his boss, and when Branch called, McCoy answered.

"Come in, Jack. How are you?"

"Fine." McCoy said.

"Busy, I hear." Branch waved him towards the couch and got to his feet.  _Oh, great_ , McCoy thought,  _One of **those**  meetings where Arthur fancies himself the boss-who's-a-friend_.

"Criminals don't take a summer vacation." He steeled himself, and sat down.

"You don't have to prosecute them all yourself, though, Jack. Or all  _by_  yourself." Branch settled himself in his armchair.

"I'm fine. I work better on my own." McCoy said. "Was there something else?"

"Yes." Branch accepted McCoy's change of subject. "Have you heard about the Jennifer Walker murder?"

"Reporter dead in Central Park?"

"Choked on her own newspaper, but the police kept that back from the press to screen confessions. She was working on a story about Councillor Tony Nettle when she was killed, a big story that might have ruined his career. Her apartment was burgled a week before she got killed and her files were stolen."

"And you think Nettle did it?" McCoy asked.  _Choked to death …dark hair and tape and the trunk of a car_ \- He blinked until his vision cleared.

"Detectives Briscoe and Green want to pick him up for the fraud and see if they can match his prints to Walker's apartment." Branch said. He leaned to take a file from his desk and held it out to McCoy. " I don't want this to be a political embarrassment. See what you make of it."

"Alright." McCoy took the file and began flipping through it. "Anything else?"

"I'd like you to pick a new assistant, Jack." Branch said.

"I don't have time to toilet-train one of your baby ADAs," McCoy said absently, attention on the papers in his hands.  _Incident report – D 40 – autopsy report_ "I've tried. This current crop of graduates you've got aren't worth the paper their degrees are printed on."

"You can't pretend to have given them a fair chance!" Branch said.

As McCoy flipped to the end of the file he knew the scene-of-crime photos would be next, he could feel the glossy prints through the carbon paper of the complaints form.  _Don't be such a fool,_  he told himself,  _they're just photos of a woman you never met. Look at them._

McCoy slammed the file shut and glared at his boss.

"There are lots of people who never get a fair chance," he said, standing up. "I can't change that. I don't need another assistant. And I don't want one. And I'm due in court."

He stalked out before Branch could say anything else.

He  _was_  due in court. McCoy slung the Walker folder onto his desk and grabbed his suit jacket and briefcase. Heading for the elevator, trying to tuck his briefcase under one arm and roll down his shirtsleeves with the other hand, McCoy was too preoccupied to look up from the carpet, too preoccupied to let his gaze and mind rest on the empty office he had to walk past.

If he didn't look, it was still possible that the light was on, that the chair was occupied by a young dark-haired woman bent industriously over her case files. It was still possible that a soft voice would call out  _Hey Jack, let me help you with that_ , and a hand would take his briefcase so he could straighten his tie and put his jacket on. It was still possible …

So he didn't look. He was too busy to look. He was  _always_  too busy to look. Because if he looked, the office would be empty and  _tape and blood and swollen features and the trunk of a car …_

McCoy made it to the elevator. The doors shut and he leaned against the wall, eyes closed, fighting nausea.

Because it wasn't possible, not really.  _Not really._

_Not ever._


	9. Second Chair

_Fraud Bureau_

_DA's Office_

_One Hogan Place_

_Monday 18 September 2006_

* * *

 

" Markham! You've been tracking the Walker case. I'm sending you over to McCoy. He's taking the case. Second chair it."

"Yes sir," Regan Markham said reflexively. She was on her feet pushing legal pads into her briefcase before Branch was out of the door, and it was three heartbeats after that before she thought, suddenly,  _Jack McCoy._

_Jack McCoy, Alpha Lawyer, top prosecutor, risk-taker, rule-breaker, hard-ass._

_Oh, crap_.

She'd met him, once, not long after she'd started at the DA's office – a meet and greet in the conference room for Regan and a few other  _younger_  new recruits, cheap champagne and orange juice, plastic-tasting cheddar on dry biscuits.  _You should meet Elizabeth – you should meet Wilson – you should meet Jack McCoy_ , Branch said, steering her around the room to acquaint her with the maximum number of people in the smallest amount of time.  _Jack, this is Miss Markham, she's just started with us. Come over from Washington_ McCoy smiled politely, shook her hand.  _DC?_ he asked, like everyone else Branch had introduced her to with those words, and Regan had smiled and shaken his hand and shaken her head.  _Washington_   _State_ , she'd explained, and then Branch's hand was on her shoulder and he was saying  _You should meet …_

McCoy's reputation for temper and tyranny had not been on show in that fifteen-second interaction. Regan had met plenty of bad-tempered alpha-males who didn't even put up a front of civility and she had plenty of practice seeing what lay beneath the polite surface, so she gave McCoy points on that - but she'd heard the stories from the ADAs in the Trial Bureaus. That was  _all_  she'd heard about Jack McCoy – maybe there was more gossip to mine if Regan had spent time in the bar with the other ADAs after work, but all she overheard in the ladies washroom was complaints.

Most of the ADAs in Trials had worked with McCoy in the last few months, because McCoy didn't seem to have a single steady assistant like the other bureau heads.  _The way he churned 'em and burned 'em, no wonder_. Late nights – all-nighters – fury at ADAs who didn't meet his superhuman standards, unreasonable expectations and outrageous demands.  _Alex_   _Borgia must have been a saint._

Alex Borgia, who had died suddenly only a month or so after that meet-n-greet, who Regan had never met nor gret. From one half-heard conversation in an elevator, Regan had learnt that Borgia had died in a car, but not how the accident had happened.

_Probably drove it off a bridge to get away from Jack McCoy_ , she thought.

Regan realised these thoughts had taken her all the way from the bull-pen to McCoy's office. The door was closed. Regan took a breath and reminded herself that the worst McCoy could do was bully and humiliate her. She'd faced and faced down worse.  _I have as much right as anybody to be here,_ as much right as the shiny new graduates she shared an office with.  _Even if I am the last resort for a DA trying to find somebody, **anybody** , who can work with his brilliant and impossible star prosecutor…_

_Showtime. Gameface._

Just as she raised her hand to knock the door flew open and Regan barely stopped herself rapping sharply on McCoy's forehead.

"Excuse me." He gave her barely a glance and pushed past her, heading down the corridor, leaving her with the impression of drawn features, the pallor they all called "courtroom tan", a man who'd aged a lot more than six months in the half-year since she'd met him.

" Mr McCoy," she called, trotting after him.

"Yes." He didn't slow down. "I'm running late, I suggest you make an appointment."

" Mr McCoy, I'm Regan Markham," Regan said, still following him.

"Make an appointment, Ms Markham." McCoy reached the lift and jabbed the call button.

"Branch sent me," Regan said.

"Branch sent you? Why?"

"Because I work for him, Mr McCoy, I'm an ADA. I worked on the Walker case and Mr Branch sent me to assist you."

McCoy turned away as the lift doors opened. "I don't need a second chair, Ms Markham, I'm sorry Arthur wasted your time." He stepped onto the lift, thumping a button with a clenched fist, and Regan hurried after him before the doors closed. McCoy sighed. " Ms Markham."

The lift started down, and Regan studied McCoy discreetly as he started fixedly at the indicator board. Her first impression was confirmed: he looked tired.  _Exhausted. Haggard_. He needed a haircut, his skin was papery pale, the shadows beneath his eyes were purple bruises of fatigue. His suit hung loose – his shirt collar was too big.

" Mr McCoy, please," she said.

"I don't need you, Ms Markham."

_I have never seen anyone who more clearly needs someone to help shoulder the load than you, Mr McCoy_. "I know you don't, Mr McCoy," she lied. "The DA didn't send me to you for your sake. Mr McCoy, you know I'm behind the curve. I'm not from a top law school, I only passed the New York bar exam last year. I'm a rube next to all these shiny new graduates." Truth gave her words a ring of conviction. She didn't say  _And I'm more than a decade older, a slow starter on my second career, Arthur_   _Branch's charity case._ She didn't need to. Next to the polished young graduates she looked as old and battered as Jack McCoy.

"I don't have time to take on a student, Ms Markham," McCoy said, but he looked at her as he said it instead of keeping his eyes fixed on the door.

"I'll do your photocopying, I'll fetch coffee, I'll do the lunch run, I'll get your dry-cleaning," Regan promised. "You'll have time."

The doors to the elevator opened. Regan held her breath, but McCoy strode out of the lift.  _Damn. Damn._

The doors started to close again and McCoy spun on his heel and stuck out a hand to stop them. "Don't start by making me late, Ms Markham," he warned.

"No sir," she said, leaping out into the corridor.

"You'll write my motions, depose my witnesses, do my pre-trial. If I have to do it over you'll go straight back to Fraud, Ms Markham."

"Yes, sir."

"You  ** _won't_**  fetch my lunch, or do my photocopying, or pick-up my dry-cleaning. Lesson one, Ms Markham – you're a lawyer.  ** _Act_** like one."

"Yes, sir."

"And don't call me sir."

"No, s – No. I won't."

"I'm due in court. I'll see you in my office at 3.30. Call Tony Nettle and see if you can persuade him to come down here and meet us."

"Why?" Regan asked.

"Because I want to know if he killed her and I want to get his fingerprints!" McCoy said.

"I know that, I mean, why do I tell him we want him to come down here?"

"Think of something."

"Yes s- Yes, Mr McCoy." They reached the front doors and McCoy barged through them without slowing down. Regan let him go.  _Think of something_.


	10. Improv

_Office of Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy_

_One Hogan Place_

_Monday 18th September 2006_

* * *

 

" Mr McCoy, I can't tell you how surprised – but pleased – I was to hear that the DA's office is taking illegal panhandling seriously  _at last_."

"Indeed," McCoy said, shaking Tony Nettle's proffered hand and hoping his face didn't betray his own, equal, surprise. He shot a glance at Regan Markham and behind Nettle's back she spread her hands and shrugged.  _You told me to think of something_ , her expression said.

_Yes, but I didn't think you'd be able to_. Markham was unexpectedly inventive. McCoy had assumed from her drab appearance and her earnestness that she'd be the hard-working-but-unimaginative type.

"I've been campaigning on this issue for the past two years," Nettle was telling him. McCoy forced himself to pay attention. "I realise that it isn't the most serious of crimes – "

"It's a misdemeanour, Councillor," McCoy said.

"But it is a real issue for the peaceful enjoyment of the urban amenity. You've seen the figures – of course you have – despite the so-called crime rate the only illegal conduct most New Yorkers will experience in any given week is being approached by one of these pests." Nettle settled himself in the chair across from McCoy's desk, eyes aglow with the zeal of the fanatic.

"Can I offer you a coffee, Councillor?" Markham asked, and when Nettle accepted she left the room, leaving McCoy to listen to the problem of the panhandlers for another five minutes.

Markham came back with the coffee in a slick plastic cup. "Sorry about the disposal-ware, Councillor, the dishwasher has been broken for days."

"No problem." He took the cup and sipped the coffee. McCoy and Markham watched him drink and talk and drink and talk until finally he tossed the empty cup in McCoy's wastepaper basket.

Markham immediately reached for the pocket of her ill-cut suit jacket and pulled out her phone. "I'm sorry to interrupt, Councillor," she said, looking at the screen, "but Mr McCoy is needed upstairs right away."

"Of course," Tony Nettle said.

"I'll walk you out," Markham said.

"I can send you those reports – " Nettle started to say to McCoy as Markham ushered him towards the door.

"I'll give you my card. You can email it to me and I'll make sure Mr McCoy …." Markham's voice trailed away as she closed McCoy's door behind her.

McCoy picked a pencil off the desk and fished Nettle's discarded cup out of the wastepaper basket. He dropped it gently into his desk drawer and picked up the phone.

"Lennie? Jack McCoy. I've got some evidence that needs to be picked up and taken to the lab for fingerprinting."


	11. Lucky Day

_Squad room_

_27 Precinct_

_Tuesday 19th September 2006_

* * *

 

Ed Green was feeling lucky. He had five hundred and sixty seven dollars in his pocket that he hadn't had yesterday, courtesy of the king, queen and jack of diamonds turning up at just the right moment last night. Ana Cordova had given him a very nice smile when he passed her on the stairs this morning and he was sure he saw her blush when he winked at her. So when his cell-phone rang he just  _knew_  it was going to be good news.

"Detective Green? Julian Beck in forensics. I have some – "

"Good news for me?"

"Yes, detective, I have some good news for you. I have a match on your coffee cup fingerprints. A seven point match to a couple of prints we pulled from Jennifer's Walker's apartment."

" Julian, you have made my day. Thanks, man." Green closed his phone. "Lennie, we got Nettle in Walker's apartment. The prints match."

"Call McCoy. I'll tell the Loot."

Green dialled again. " Mr McCoy please. Ed Green. Hey, counsellor. I've got something for you – a fingerprint match. Councillor Nettle, in Jenny Walker's apartment, without a pair of gloves. Can we pick him up?"

"For what?" McCoy sounded harassed – and, Green thought, tired. "He's been in a dead woman's apartment. So had a lot of other people."

"A lot of other people weren't about to lose their careers over a story she was writing. That story wasn't spun out of whole cloth, Mr McCoy. She was taking him  _down_."

"That gives him a motive for the break-in. And you can put him in the apartment -  _sometime_. But she wasn't killed in the apartment, Detective, and you can't put him where she was killed."

"Because we can't get close enough to him! We're handling him with kid gloves, we can't ask him for an alibi, we can't search his house for shoes with dirt in them or clothes with blood on them – "

"That's right, you can't. So think laterally.  _Detect_  something."

"Counsellor, you're tying my hands behind my back and telling me to play catch!"

McCoy sighed. "All right. Brief Regan Markham on what you have and we'll see what help we can give you."

"Thanks," Green said, and hung up. "For nothing!" He looked up to see Briscoe with a coffee mug in each hand.

"No joy?" Briscoe asked, putting one of the mugs down on Green's desk.

"Thanks. Brief Markham, and he'll see what help he can give us. Still hands off the golden boy."

"Funny, that's what the Loot said." Briscoe sipped his own coffee. "So why don't I see you dialling?"

"Hey, you're the one she has a thing for, man!" Green protested.

"She comped both of us, Ed. And after that day in the morgue I realised she wasn't my type."

"You mean you realised you weren't in her  _league_."

"How can I compete?" Briscoe said, shrugging.

"Well," Green said, reaching for the phone, "It  _is_ my lucky day."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I've read something about the floor-plan and layout of One Hogan Place – which floor the DAs office is on, where the different bureaus have their offices etc etc, but I can't find it again on the web. I appreciate any corrections from readers about this – or any other matters of NY geography or locations. Also, the website for the NY DA says that all the bureaus have administrators, paralegals and secretaries to support them. I have invented an uber-administrator who answers directly to Branch and oversees the administration of the whole DAs office, the way the EADA overseas the legal work.


	12. Show Me The Money

_Office of Lieutenant Van Buren_

_27 Precinct_

_Tuesday 19th September 2006_

* * *

 

"I'm afraid it's not your lucky day, Detective," Regan Markham said apologetically. "Those fingerprints could have got there any time, before  _or_  after the break-in. Mr McCoy was right, we can't go to the grand jury for a burglary indictment, let alone murder, on this."

"What about the fraud?" Van Buren asked. "Can you get him on that? It would be nice to get him off the street."

"It would be nice, and I have some good news for you. I've been digging into the municipal finances, the contracting, the accounts, and I think I'm close to an indictment. Let me take these, okay? I'll go over them tonight, talk to McCoy, and I'll see if he'll let me get the grand jury busy. That will give us a little leverage, and some search warrants."

"We'd appreciate it," Green said.

"I'll see what I can do," Regan said. She bundled up the papers they had been pouring over and tried to cram them in her over-stuffed briefcase before giving up. With the briefcase in one hand and the case files under the other arm she struggled back to One Hogan Place and her cubicle in the Fraud bullpen.

Which was occupied. A very young man with very glossy hair and a very expensive tan was talking on the phone. Regan noted the picture in the expensively tasteful frame of a well-groomed blonde, the leather desk-blotter, the mahogany desk-set. Then she noticed the cardboard box by his feet with her few personal belongings in it.

_I've been fired._  Her heart gave a painful thump.  _It's happened at last. I was lucky to get this job, given my academic transcripts, and now I've lost it._

The young ADA finished his phone call and hung up.

"Excuse me," Regan said, and she was pleased that her voice didn't shake or break. "I'm Regan Markham. This used to be my desk."

"Hi, Regan," he said, holding out his hand to shake hers and then letting it fall as he realised how burdened she was. "I'm Matthew Omardi. You need to call Colleen in Mr Branch's office. Do you want to use my phone?"

"Thanks," Regan said. "Can I put my stuff down here for a minute?"

"Go ahead," said Omardi expansively.

"There's a bottle of scotch in the bottom drawer," Regan said, reaching past him for the phone. "Could you add that to the box, please? Hello, Colleen, Regan Markham in Fraud."

"Not anymore," Colleen Petraky, Arthur Branch's chief administrative officer said cheerfully.  _Oh God._ Regan thought she wasn't going to be able to keep the tears at bay. "You're trials now. Come on up to the tenth floor and I'll show you your new desk."

"Thank you," Regan said, so fervently Omardi looked at her. "Thank you, Colleen."

She put the phone down and looked at Omardi, her best level stare. "Scotch, Mr Omardi. Please."

Five minutes later she was standing at Colleen Petraky's desk.

"Come with me, Ms Markham," Petraky said, and led her along the corridor to a small cubicle that looked out to the office doors of the DA and the EADA. "Here you go. If there's anything you need, call Greg Boyer on extension 3476."

"Thanks." Regan put her box and briefcase on the desk and looked around at her new office. Really, with three walls glass above waist-level, it was more of a cubicle, but it was at least three times as big as the cubicle she'd had in Fraud and there were Venetian blinds she could lower to get privacy.

She wanted to revel in the moment, maybe put her feet up on the desk, but she had a monster file on her desk and she had made a promise to the detectives in the 2-7. Quickly, she put away her stapler and her scotch and got to work.


	13. Hot Dates And Cold Coffee

_City Hall_

_Murray St_

_19th September_

* * *

 

"What are we doing here, man?" Green asked.

"Didn't McCoy tell you to think laterally?" Briscoe said. He took a sip of coffee and pulled a face. "Cold. You want another?"

"Depends how long we'll be sittin' in this car." Green said. "McCoy told us to detect something. I didn't hear him mention sitting in this car all night."

"What's the matter, you have a hot date?"

"Always, Lennie." Green tried to stretch his legs, gave up.

"It's only eight. You might make it. Unless she goes to bed real early."

"I'm hoping she does." Green said. "Hey, look, is that Nettle?"

"Yes, it is." Briscoe reached for the ignition. "Let's see where he's going."

Traffic was heavy but Briscoe kept Nettle's cab in sight until it dropped him at the Port Authority bus station.

"Aw, man," Green said, but he was already getting out of the car. "I'm not getting on the bus with him, Lennie, not without overtime."

He strode after Nettle into the bus station, moving his hat around on his head and sticking a toothpick in his mouth, instant transformation to jive artist from the 'hood.

Nettle didn't head for the ticket agent or the buses, but the lockers. Green followed him down the stairs and made as if to check his phone for a text message as Nettle pulled a key from his inside jacket pocket. When Nettle started opening a locker, Green sauntered towards him, for all intents and purposes preoccupied with the message he was tapping out on his phone.

Not so preoccupied, though, that he couldn't get a good look over Nettle's shoulder.

The city councillor checked the locker contents, but didn't take anything out. When he shut the locker and hurried off, Green stayed.

When Briscoe found him, Green was still leaning against the wall, waiting. "What's up? I saw Nettle heading out again on my way in!"

"We've found what we were looking for, Lennie," Green said. "Let him go."


	14. Making the case

_Tenth Floor_

_One Hogan Place_

_Tuesday 19th September 2006_

* * *

 

"What the hell are you doing?" Jack McCoy snapped.

Regan Markham, deeply absorbed in forensic reports and witness statements, was startled enough to drop the folder she was holding. Papers cascaded over her lap and to the floor.

"Shit," she said, scrabbling to catch them. McCoy made no move to help her, and when Regan looked up at him from where she knelt on the floor with her hands full of papers she quailed at the look on his face.

"I asked what you're doing here, Ms Markham."

"The Walker case," she blurted.

"I ask you to get together with the detectives and you think that means 'help yourself to a new office while you're at it'?" McCoy looked like he wanted to kill her. Regan knew from experience what that look was like, and McCoy had it.

" Colleen Petraky," Regan said. "She said – " The words died on her lips.

"I see," McCoy said. He took a step back, looked away. "She should know better. This desk isn't available."

"I'll move." Regan said. She dumped her papers back on the desk and frantically started putting them in order. "One of the conference rooms. Give me a minute, I'll be gone – " The papers escaped from her grasp again and she dived after them.

"Here." McCoy crouched down and picked up a crime scene photo. He glanced at it for maybe a second too long, then flipped it face down and held it out to her.

"Thanks," Regan said, taking it as a peace offering.  _Only in the criminal justice system can pictures of murdered women be considered peace offerings._

"What do you have on the case?"

"I think we're solid to indict Nettle for the Fraud." Regan corralled the last of the papers and put them on the desk. McCoy stood up when she did and leaned against the doorframe. "On the break-in and the murder, not so much. His prints were in the right places in Walker's apartment – desk, bookshelves, computer. The other prints all belong to people who could maybe explain their presence."

"What do you mean?"

" Walker wrote a story on racism in the police force about six weeks ago. One of the orphan prints belongs to a black cop in Narcotics. Prints from a cop who responded to the break-in. FBI turned up a match on one of the other sets, a government employee who was printed when he worked in DOD. Again, a link to Walker's research."

"That goes for Nettle, too." McCoy pointed out.

"Nettle wasn't a  _source_. He was a  _target_."

"It's not enough. Any other prints?"

"Prints from a colleague, Luke Conroy. Sorry,  _former_  colleague. He got laid off in a restructure. These are weird, though. One under the toilet seat, and a bunch  _inside_  the beside table drawer. I guess it's been a while since he's been there and the rest got cleaned away. I don't get these left-hand prints inside the drawer, though."

"What do you mean?"

"The drawers were on the left hand side of the bed. The prints are a bunch of smudgy left-handed prints on the far right of the drawer, little finger on the left." Regan gestured to her desk drawers. "Say these are the bedside table. I'm standing by the bed like so – in order to get my prints where Conroy's were found I have to turn this way, reach over that way, stretch – ouch." She rubbed her back. "It's bizarre."

Jack McCoy was smiling, and she realised he was laughing at her.

"What? What's funny?"

He came into the office. "The desk drawers are the beside table? So where I'm standing is the bed?"

"Okay," Regan said.

McCoy reached out to the drawer from the middle of the 'bed'. He could just reach the drawer handle but couldn't get enough purchase to open it more than an inch. Then he took hold of the drawer by the front of it, thumb on the outside, four fingers inside near the far right side, and pulled it the rest of the way open.

"I don't think Luke Conroy was in that apartment as a colleague," McCoy said, straightening up. "And I think we can guess where Jennifer Walker kept her condoms."

"None recorded as found in the drawer," Regan said, looking for the relevant report.

"Maybe she ran out."

"Maybe." Regan scanned the report. "That's odd. No birth control of any kind in the bedroom or the bathroom."

"Maybe she ran out, Regan, it happens." McCoy said.

"Autopsy says never pregnant." Regan said. "No indication she couldn't get that way."

"So?"

"So healthy young sexually active women don't successfully avoid pregnancy by being happy-go-lucky with birth control," Regan said.

"And what does that tell you?" McCoy asked.

"Nothing. Just – " The phone on her desk rang. "'Scuse me. Hello, Regan Markham? Yes. Where? Are you sure? Yes, hang on, he's here." She put her hand over the mouthpiece. "Detective Green. He and Briscoe just followed Nettle to a Port Authority locker full of papers. He saw enough over Nettle's shoulder to recognise a city council account docket and something in Jennifer Walker's handwriting."

McCoy held out his hand for the phone. "Detective Green. A warrant is on its way to you. Pick up those papers – and then pick up Councillor Nettle." He reached past Regan to hang up the phone. "Better get moving, Ms Markham. Keep me posted."

"Yes, s – yes, Mr McCoy," Regan said, reaching for a pen.


	15. Making The Deal

_Interview Room_

_27 Precinct_

_Tuesday 19th September 2006_

* * *

 

"So  _you're_ Jack's new girl." Sally Bell looked her up and down. "Usually, he likes them younger."

"I'm told beggars can't be choosers," Regan said evenly.

Sally laughed. "Good for you!" she said, sounding surprised. "You might just make it. Well, can I tell you, neither you  _nor_  McCoy can afford to be choosy here."

"We like your client for Murder One," Regan said. "He had motive. He broke into her apartment and stole the documents that incriminated him. But that wasn't enough, was it, Tony? You needed to shut her up.  _And you did_."

"Didn't the detectives brief you, Ms Markham?" Bell asked. "We've been through all this with them."

"You spun them a fairy tale," Regan said. "Are you going to try and spin me the same one?"

"It's not a fairy tale," Nettle said. "It's the truth!"

"Quiet, Councillor," Bell said. " Ms Markham, Councillor Nettle did not murder Jennifer Walker. He can give you the man who did – the man who took the documents you found in that Port Authority locker from Jennifer Walker the night she died."

"The documents in your client's locker?"

"We don't concede that. But regardless, we are ready to make a deal. Councillor Nettle will tell you everything he knows about the murder, and in exchange, you will give him immunity for any changes that might arise the result of the fraud Jennifer Walker was investigating."

"Or, your client will tell the police everything he knows about the murder and in exchange I will not charge him with hindering prosecution. You are withholding evidence in relation to a homicide investigation, Councillor Nettle! We take that very seriously in the DAs office."

"It's my way or the high-way, Ms Markham," Sally Bell said. "You don't need to approve of his conduct, but accept it as a reality of the situation and move on."

Regan looked at her, then at fresh-faced politico on the other side of the table. "I oughta slam your ass in Rikers for this," she said to him, and had the satisfaction of seeing him flinch a little from the cold fury in her voice.

"That's not an option on the table if you want a conviction on the murder, Ms Markham." Bell said. "You have no other evidence – if you did, you'd be looking in the right direction."

"Immunity on a half-million dollar fraud?" Regan asked. "No."

"You don't have the authority to reject me," Bell said. "Take it to McCoy. Tell him it's a deal-breaker."

Regan glared at her, but knew she was right. This deal  _was_  McCoy's call. "Wait here," she said grimly.

"Tic-toc, counsellor," Bell said. "Offer's good for ten minutes."

Regan slammed out of the interrogation room and yanked out her mobile. She filled McCoy in on her conversation with Sally Bell. "'It's a deal-breaker'," she finished, fuming. "Fuck her deal-breaker and fuck her sideways."

"Easy there, tiger," McCoy said, and Regan could hear the laughter in his voice. "Did she use the ticking clock on you?"

"Tic-toc, counsellor," Regan mimicked.

"I used to say I taught Sally Bell everything she knows," McCoy said. "The ticking clock included. Make the deal with her."

" _What?"_  Regan said. "So he gets away with stealing a half-million dollars?"

"And we convict a murderer."

" Jesus, Mr McCoy!" Regan said. "There's got to be another way."

"He's got something that we need," McCoy said. " Sally's right about that. This was a horrible murder and I want the man who did it behind bars where he can't do it again. Make the deal she asked for –  _exactly_  the deal she asked for. And make sure you tell her it's conditional on you liking what you hear."

"Do you think she's trying it on?" Regan asked.

"Not Sally, she wouldn't try to make a deal she didn't believe in. But always say it in a negotiation. Deals always depend on the quality of the information."

"I'll remember," Regan said. "I'll call you back."


	16. Immunity

_Observation Room_

_27 Precinct_

_Tuesday 19th September 2006_

* * *

 

Jack McCoy leaned against wall by the two-way mirror in the observation room at the 2-7. Regan Markham and Lennie Briscoe were crossing Ts and dotting Is on Nettle's immunity deal with Sally Bell. McCoy closed his eyes for a minute, half his attention on the voices coming through the speaker. It was past ten at night, and the day weighed on him. The deal they were making in the interview room was important, and it had to be right, but McCoy couldn't find the energy to argue with Sally Bell tonight. He leaned against the wall, eyes closed, and listened to Regan Markham do it.

Markham was doing all right. Sally Bell took no prisoners. She had been well on her way to being a hard-ass prosecutor when she'd started second chairing for McCoy and their partnership – and relationship – had accelerated the process. She'd left him and just for emphasis, left the DA's Office and become a hard-ass public defender. As a general rule, McCoy was reluctant to send rookies up against her, but tonight, knowing he could interrupt if it looked like Markham was screwing it up.

_So far, so good_. Markham wasn't being tempted into arguments that could lead her away from the position he'd given her. Her voice even and pleasant, she repeated the DA's offer, listened patiently as Sally tried to push the envelope, and then said exactly the same thing again.

"Does Jack change the tape in your head every day?" Sally asked at last.

"Twice a day, if I'm good," Markham said brightly, and McCoy heard Lennie Briscoe snort. His own lips twitched in a tired smile. Markham seemed far more comfortable, even confident, in the box tonight than she had in Alex's office that morning. If he was honest, McCoy had to admit he probably had something to do with that. Seeing the light on that morning, he had gone to the door expecting – McCoy didn't know what he'd been expecting.  _Alex_.  _But Alex was in the trunk of a car. But who else could it be?_

It came down to the fact that the light had been on, so he had gone to the door. And when he had seen his unasked for, unsought assistant – seen light brown hair instead of the dark sleek head he had half-hoped to see – McCoy had hung between the insidious image of  _tape and bulging eyes and the boot of a car_ and an almost paralysing anger. Anger at Markham, for being where she shouldn't be, anger at Alex for  _not_  being where she ought to be –  _and how despicable is that?_ – and anger at himself for being thrown off balance and for blaming an innocent rookie and an innocent victim for it -

He had heard the fury in his voice as if it belonged to another, seen Markham flinch like a scared rabbit and been livid with her for making him treat her that way – it was an ever shrinking vicious circle that over the past few months had invariably ended with an ADA storming into Branch's office and demanding a transfer.

_Not this morning_ , McCoy thought.  _But she'll go sooner or later._

_Sooner. She doesn't have the personality for major felonies. Abbie, Jamie – they would have gone toe-to-toe with me this morning from the first words out of my mouth._

He dragged his attention back to the interview room, turned to look through the window. The deal had been agreed. Sally leaned back in her chair, folded her arms and nodded to her client to start talking.

"I did break into her apartment," Tony Nettle said, voice barely above a whisper. "I was looking for her files on the story she was doing on me. But they weren't there. I took a bunch of stuff – almost all of it turned out to be old stories."

"Then how did you get the papers in that locker?" Briscoe asked.

"Today was the first time I saw them. I got a phone call last week, a phone call from a man. He said he had the papers that Jenny Walker was using – her notes, everything. He offered to sell them to me. It took me until today to get the money together. I paid him this morning. He had the key and locker number dropped off at my office this afternoon."

"You're not getting me any closer to different defendant, Councillor," Regan said.

"He said he got them from Jennifer Walker's briefcase. He said she was carrying it on her way home when he met her. I could tell from his voice what he meant."

"So you want us to arrest some nameless somebody because of what you could tell from his voice?" Briscoe said.

"Don't get ahead of yourself, Detective," Sally Bell said. " Tony, tell them the rest of it."

"Almost all of the files I took turned out to be Walker's old stories – but there was one that wasn't."

"She was working on something new?" Regan asked.

Nettle shook his head. "It was like a surveillance file. Dates, times, places – some photos. She was watching somebody. When I read it, I realised she was watching somebody who was watching  _her_. Her and it seemed like another woman, too, a woman called Serena something."

"She had a stalker?" Briscoe asked.

"A man called Luke Conroy. What – does that name mean something to you?" Nettle looked from Regan to Briscoe and back.

"I think this is where I say 'We'll ask the questions'," Briscoe said. "So she had a stalker. So what does that have to do with the locker full of papers at the Port Authority?"

"That phone call. My secretary put it through because she recognised the extension. It came from the press room at City Hall. You have to put a code into those phones so the right newspaper or station gets billed for any long-distance calls. City council does the bills. One of codes punched in that day was for a Luke Conroy from the  _Daily News_."

"That's enough," Sally Bell said. "So, how about it? Do we have a deal?"

"If it pans out. I want those files."

"They're at home," Nettle said.

"You broke into a journalist's apartment and stole her files and kept them  _in your house_?"

"I've never done this sort of thing before," Nettle protested. "I'm not a hardened criminal!"

McCoy snorted to himself, grabbing his briefcase and turning to leave.

"No, just a criminal," he heard Briscoe say through the intercom before the door closed behind him.


	17. Sly Old Dog

_Office of Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy_

_One Hogan Place_

_12.30 am 20 September 2006_

* * *

 

Regan was surprised to see a light still on in McCoy's office. She had been going to pack her stuff back up but she detoured to knock on his door.

He looked up from the papers he was studying and waved her in. "Briscoe and Green picked Conroy up a half-hour ago," he said, and then yawned, covering his mouth belatedly. "CSU is in his apartment. I was just about to head down to the Two Seven to watch the interrogation. You want to come?"

"Yeah!" Regan said, and McCoy's mouth quirked at her enthusiasm. He dropped his pen and scrubbed both hands over his face, then got up and reached for his suit jacket and tie.

"All right. Since you're so full of pep and vim at this ungodly hour of the night, meet me there." McCoy said. "Go on down to the Complaint Room, will you, and start the paper on Nettle."

"We gave him immunity!"

"On the  _fraud_. We didn't give him immunity on breaking into Jennifer Walker's apartment and stealing her notes. Or making a deal with a blackmailing murderer to buy evidence in a murder case or concealing evidence from the police."

"You sly bastard. You taught Sally Bell everything she knows?"

"That's right."

"But not everything you know, right?"

"They say," McCoy said, knotting his tie, "that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Fortunately, I already have enough to be going on with. I would have made that deal regardless, Ms Markham, I want the son-of-a-bitch who tortured and murdered Jennifer Walker  _behind bars_." He turned to leave, then turned back. "See if the belongings Nettle took from the apartment were worth enough for a grand larceny charge. And find out how much the paper would have paid for that fraud story if it was sold to them by a stringer. Receiving stolen goods – accessory after the fact – throw the book at him."

"I hear you," Regan said. "I'm on it."

"Don't take too long. I want you at the Two Seven."

"Okay," Regan said. She tried to keep her face and voice serious, but she thought she saw a smile on McCoy's face as he turned away.  _Well, so what? I don't like Nettle and I don't like him getting away with stealing a half-million dollars that could buy books for libraries or lunch-programs for low-income kids._

And if she told herself the truth, she was warmed by McCoy's words.

The rumour mill had Jack McCoy pegged as a tyrant with unreasonable expectations.

But today, she'd met them.

_Maybe I can do this job after all._


	18. Breaking The Case

_Interrogation Observation_

_Two Seven Precinct_

_2 am Wednesday 20th September 2006_

* * *

 

"What did I miss?" Regan Markham asked the second she was in the door, before she even had her coat off. "Lieutenant."

McCoy and Van Buren both turned away from the two-way mirror.

"Lieutenant, this is ADA Regan Markham," McCoy said. "Regan, Anita Van Buren. Ms Markham's been the primary ADA on the case."

"We've met, Mr McCoy. Impressive dedication, Ms Markham, to be here at this time of night."

"At this time of night, you can call me Regan, Lieutenant," Markham said. "What'd'I miss?"

"Nothing," McCoy said. "The dossier Walker compiled on her stalker may be convincing to us, and it may even convince a grand jury, but I don't think it'll take us to a murder conviction."

"No joy yet from forensics." Van Buren said.

"I need a confession," McCoy said. "And he's not going to give it."

Markham went right up to the glass and stared in at Conroy, who was ignoring Briscoe and Green. "Has a shrink seen him?" she asked, not looking away.  _If she were a setter, she'd be pointing,_  McCoy thought.  _Or growling. Or both._

"Huang from Sex Crimes is on his way over." Van Buren said. "But we're running out of time."

"Has he lawyered up?" McCoy asked.

"Not yet. But there's a public defender in the lobby who we won't be able to stall much longer." Van Buren said.

"Once he has a lawyer in here we won't get anything out him," McCoy said.

"Charge with stalking?" Still, Markham's gaze didn't waver from Conroy.

"He'll get bail."

Markham was silent for a moment, still as stone, face like a mask. "Let me in the box," she said.

"I don't think so," McCoy said, surprised, a little impressed and a lot surprised by her audacity. "This is not a case for training wheels."

"Don't you know why I'm so much older than the other new graduates?" Markham asked. "I got my degree through night-school – while working as a cop back in Seattle. I can crack him, Mr McCoy.  _I know I can_. Let me try." A noise behind them made then all turn. "The lawyer will be here any second. What do we have to lose?"

"Go," Van Buren said, and when McCoy turned to her she glared at him. "I want this guy as much as you do, Jack, and she might just have a chance. If it doesn't work, we're not any worse off."

"True," McCoy said. "You know this is her first homicide prosecution, right?"

"Maybe not, if she used to be a cop."

Markham was already in the room. She looked at Conroy, looked away, tossed her briefcase to Green. "Briscoe, get me a coffee, will ya?"

Brisoce was a pro, so was Green, but if Conroy's gaze hadn't been pinned to Markham the two detectives' reaction would have given the game away at the start. They recovered quickly, though. Brisoce came straight out and Green set Regan's briefcase down and began to unpack it for her.

"Thanks for the high sign, Loot," Brisoce said, filling a mug.

"We're about to be drowning in legal advice," Van Buren said. "let Markham play it."

"Yeah, yeah," Briscoe said. He took the coffee in and gave it to Markham. "Here you go, ma'am."

Markham took it without looking at him. "So, Conroy, what's your problem?"

"I don't have a problem." he said immediately.

Markham laughed. "You're in an interrogation room in the 27 precinct with two cops and an ADA. You're going to be charged, arraigned, tried, and convicted and then you're going to jail. You have a problem. But that's not what I meant. What's your problem with women?" When he was silent she shot him a glance, vaguely curious, not much. "Mommy potty train you too early?"

Watching through the glass, McCoy shook his head. He could guess Markham's strategy but she was using blunt instruments and Conroy didn't have enough ragged edges for Markham to prise him open in the next few minutes.

"I don't have a problem with women," Conroy said.

"Yeah, whatever," Markham said. "I'm wondering, though, about the newspaper. You can't get it up, okay, use a bottle, a hairbrush." Conroy opened his mouth but she held up her hand and went on. "But newspaper? You must have a real floppy dick if a handful of paper is stiffer."

Beside McCoy, Anita Van Buren snorted. "She's not shy or retiring, is she?"

"No," McCoy said. In the room, Conroy was leaning over the table, red-faced, trying to interrupt but Markham talked right over him, leaning forward over the table, tone bubbling with mockery.

"See, we were wondering if maybe you and she had a thing, but then it wouldn't make sense that she let them can you, but I guess a round of bedroom aerobics with Mr Sleepy there left her pretty indifferent to your continued employment."

"I wouldn't fuck that diseased bitch with a gun to my head.  _That's_  why I used the paper. I got no problem and no complaints in that department. Look!"

As he got to his feet and reached for his fly both detectives grabbed him. " _Nobody_  needs to see that, Conroy," Briscoe said.

Behind McCoy the door opened. "I'm Mr Conroy's lawyer and this interrogation is over."

Out of the corner of his eye McCoy saw Van Buren quickly press the "OFF" button on the speaker. Conroy's shouts were immediately silenced.

"Yes, the interrogation is over," McCoy said. "Your client just confessed. Lieutenant, arrest Mr Conroy for the murder of Jennifer Walker. Counsellor, the People will be seeking a hate crime enhancement."

"That's preposterous," the public defender said. Van Buren pressed the speaker button again and the room was filled with Conroy's ranting, calling Regan Markham " Jenny" and telling her he'd "do" her all over again.

"Do what, Luke?" Green asked. "Do what?"

"You'll eat your words, you bitch, you cunt, you'll eat them, do you hear me, I'll shove them so far down your throat you'll never say anything again – "

Van Buren cut him off.

"He was fully Mirandized," McCoy said. "All of that is going before a jury. And you'll never be able to put him on the stand. My ADA got him foaming at the mouth in under ten minutes. Imagine what cross-examination will be like."

"What do you want?" the young public defender sighed.

"I want Jenny Walker's family to be able to celebrate Christmas with her this year," McCoy snapped. "Since that won't be happening, I want Luke Conroy to be celebrating Christmas in Sing Sing every December for the rest of his life."

"You're not giving me anything to work with," the defence attorney said. "That's not an offer. He'll never plead."

"If he pleads to the maximum on the murder and elocutes, we won't seek the hate crime enhancement. That's the difference between life, and life with no  _possibility_  of parole. Make your client understand that.'

The door to the interrogation room opened and Regan Markham came out.

"I'll have to talk to my client," the defence attorney said.

"Don't take too long." McCoy said.

"Tic-toc," Markham added.


	19. A Hill Of Beans

_10th Floor_

_One Hogan Place_

_8 am Wednesday 20 September 2006_

* * *

 

Regan Markham walked steadily, calmly down the hall, coat over one arm, briefcase in the other hand. She kept her head up and her face in a pleasantly neutral expression – the one she'd developed on the job, the one that said firm but non-threatening.

_"And then I choked her, but not too much. Just to calm her down, you know."_

" Ms Markham!" Colleen Petraky called down the hall. " Mr Branch wants to see you."

_"But I didn't want her to go and faint on me."_

"Can it wait, Colleen?" Regan kept her voice even and light. "What's up?"

"Just to talk about the Walker case, I expect, Ms Markham. I'll tell him I left word but you were in the ladies, if you like."

"Thanks. I'll be along in a few." Regan turned again, counting her steps. Twenty, twenty five – thirty brought her to her office door.

_"I had the newspapers already. I ripped them up beforehand."_

She kicked the door shut behind her and dropped her coat and briefcase on the desk. Then she let down the blinds. They fell with a clatter that made her flinch.

Regan didn't bother to turn on the light. Enough light came through the blinds from the hallway to break the gloom.

_"I did her snatch first, I shoved those papers up her, I filled her up with her own goddamn words. She thought she was so fucking smart with her putdowns and her whaddyasay, wit She wasn't so smart by the time I finished, I tell ya. She was crying and moaning and begging me. You know how much newspaper you can get up a pussy?"_

She dropped into her chair and yanked open the bottom desk drawer. She pulled out the bottle of scotch there and the glass beside it.

_"Then I shut her up for good."_

Suddenly in a terrible hurry, Regan slapped the glass on the desk and fumbled the top off the bottle. Hands shaking so badly the bottle rattled on the lip of the glass, she poured herself a good measure, spilling some, then shoved the bottle on the desk and grabbed the glass in both hands.  _"I hardly had to hold her down by then. I guess I tore up something inside. She was all floppy at first when I pushed the first pieces in her mouth. I guess she didn't know what was going to happen."_

Her teeth chattered on the glass as she gulped the scotch down. It burned warm down her throat.

_"Then as I kept on shoving it in her, shoving all those smartass words into her gullet, cramming them in, then she started to know. And she started to fight. She fought hard. But I lay on top of her and I kept pushing those words down her throat and pushing them in and eventually – well, I guess even she had enough of them."_

The scotch burned warm down her throat but curdled on her stomach. Regan snatched up the wastepaper bin just in time to vomit it back up. The spasms were violent and left her dry-heaving, eyes watering, but she'd eaten nothing since lunch yesterday so the mess was minimal.

She set the bin back on the floor with its new odour of sour scotch and poured herself another glass, steadier this time, only one hand to hold the bottle, only one hand to hold the glass. This one she sipped at.

"You think it'll stay down?" McCoy startled her badly. She looked up to see her door ajar, McCoy peering in from the hall.  _Having a door that closes is a big improvement on my Fraud cubicle,_ Regan thought, _but having one that locked would be even better_.

"How long have you been standing there spying on me?" she asked.

"Long enough. Can I come in?"

"Sure." McCoy closed the door behind him and lifted the file-box off the chair by the desk. He set it on the floor and sat down. "I'm just about to pack up," Regan said. hastily.

"I know," McCoy said. "Do you know Arthur wants to see you?"

"Yes, I'm hiding from him too."

"Him too?"

"I'm hiding from you, actually," Regan said.

"How's that going?" McCoy asked and Regan laughed, because McCoy could be a charming SOB when he wanted to. "I wanted to talk to you before Arthur – about that interrogation."

"Let's not, and say we did," Regan said.

"Let's do, and say we didn't. I'm not keen on surprises, Ms Markham."

"I'm sorry. I thought you knew. I asked Mr Branch not to talk about it, but I assumed … I used to be a cop, back west. I did my law degree at night, less than stellar transcripts, scraped through the New York Bar Exam, landed this job because Mr Branch was impressed with my law and order credentials. I think he thought it made him look good."

"He's not cashing in the credit," McCoy said.

"I guess I misjudged him." Regan said. "Anyway, I'm not sure how a good a lawyer I make, but I know how to game a suspect. I should have told you, but I didn't think it would come up."

"You broke him pretty quick," McCoy said. "You knew what buttons to press. How?"

Regan smiled, straightened up a little in her chair. "No condoms in the bedside drawer. No birth control in the bathroom, either. And Conroy was stalking Walker and a woman called Serena S, who lives in Soho."

" Serena Southerlyn."

"Celebrity lesbian. Google her. The gay gossip columns have her with a secret new girlfriend."

"A secret new girlfriend called Jennifer Walker." McCoy shook his head. "I'll call her. She deserves to know we'll nail Conroy."

"You know Southerlyn?"

"She used to work for me," McCoy said. "So Walker ditched Conroy for a woman. No wonder that was a sore point. Was that what made you so sure you could break him?"

"No," Regan said. Her breath caught then, and she took a gulp of scotch. "I have some habits left over from the old days, Mr McCoy. I like to be thorough. I went to the city morgue with the detectives to talk to the ME and see the body."

"And?"

" Jennifer Walker was shorter than me, and stockier. But in the face – " Regan stopped.

"In the face?" McCoy prompted.

"She looked just like me," Regan said, and then grabbed the wastepaper bin again, just in time.

"He really got to you," McCoy said when she sat up again.

"I'm fine."

"You're sitting in your office in the dark ralphing perfectly good scotch at eight am in the morning. That's not even in the same zip code as fine, Regan, don't mistake me for an idiot."

"Okay," she said. "Okay, he got to me."

"You can't let that happen," McCoy said. "You have to keep thinking like a lawyer."

"I did," Regan said. " _He confessed._ He took the plea. He set it all out for the record with his lawyer there and waiver signed.  _Water-fucking-tight._ I  _kept_ thinking like a lawyer. I kept  _acting_ like a lawyer."

"All right," McCoy said. "Fair enough. You kept it together – up to a point. Do you think that's going to be enough?"

Regan looked at him. Her head was pounding, her eyes were full of sand. She wanted to crawl under her desk and curl up like a baby until the rest of the world got the hint and went away. "Enough?"

"Not every case that crosses my desk is like this one, but a percent are – the controversial, the high profile, the gory. You have to find a way to keep them from taking too much of a toll. If you can't, you're better off back in Fraud – or you'll burn out."

"Thanks for the advice," Regan said, and knocked back the rest of her scotch.

"You think I'm patronising you?" McCoy asked.

"You are patronising me," she snapped. "'Don't let it get to you?' Any hints on how to go about that?"

"Get a hobby," McCoy said.

"Does drinking count?" Regan shot back

"I've always thought so," McCoy said, and grinned. After a beat, Regan burst out laughing.

"Fussy about germs?" she asked. When McCoy shook his head, she tipped a generous measure of scotch into her empty glass and handed it to him. He knocked it back almost as eagerly as Regan had done. "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

"I hope you see yourself as Louis," McCoy said.

"Don't worry, Jack, you're the hero in  _everyone's_  story." Then Regan suddenly realised exactly what he'd said earlier. "You said ' _If_  I can't deal with it I'd be better off back in Fraud'. Does that mean  _if_ I can I'm staying here in Trial?"

"If you want."

"With you?"

"It's a package deal."

 _Why me_ , Regan almost said, but she closed her mouth tight on the words.  _Do not look a gift horse in the mouth_.  _Do not remind him that there are plenty of more talented, more brilliant, younger, more promising ADAs and he's burnt through most of them. Do not suggest to him that he should think twice about this._

"Shall we drink to that?" she said instead, lifting the scotch bottle, but McCoy took it quickly out of her hand.

"Better not. Arthur Branch is waiting to tell you that you did a good job and impart some of the wisdom of his years of experience, which is something he'll enjoy a lot more than you will but you can't avoid it. You need to straighten up and fly right - for the next fifteen minutes."

"I can do that," Regan said. "I'm sure. I'm  _pretty_  sure."

"I have every confidence," McCoy said. He stood up and held out his hand.

Regan took it and let him pull her to her feet. "Listen, Mr McCoy, I'll get this office cleared by lunchtime."

"You may as well use the desk," McCoy said. "For the moment."

"For the moment," Regan agreed.

McCoy let go of her hand and opened the door. "You coming?"

Regan ran her hands over her hair and jerked her suit jacket straight.

"Yeah," she said. "I'm right behind you."


End file.
